History

Created in 1967 from a company started by Mr J Livingston Hogg to represent major US instrument manufacturers in the UK, Livingston Hire was the first instrument rental organisation to offer these services to the European market.

A major contract with Cable & Wireless in the late 1960s raised enough money to persuade the bank to support their ideas for substantial expansion. In 1970 Livingston Hire Germany was created, and another sister company was set up in Holland in 1972. In 1978, the company expanded into Stockholm, Sweden from where a branch in Denmark was controlled. Two years later, an operation was set up in Rungis, south of Paris.

A major proportion of orders received during the 1970s and 1980s came from the defence market, and some of Livingston’s equipment played a starring role in several Bond films produced at Pinewood Studios, as well as on television in science programmes hosted by Magnus Pike and even on Tomorrow’s World.

In the eighties, Livingston began to integrate computer systems into the product range and this equipment was also available for rental.

In 1985 Livingston was taken over by the Brammer Group, but 9 years later this affiliation was broken and the name of the group from then was Livingston Group Ltd.

The growing relevance of services and the independence from individual manufacturers, as well as the high quality of services in all corporate divisions, served to turn Livingston into Europe’s leader.

In March 2004, Mel Porter the CEO of Livingston bought Livingston out of Brammer Group and the company became an independent private company and the business invested heavily in new technology. Livingston is now Europe's Number One in Test Equipment and IT Rental.